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Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood.

H. P. Lovecraft

Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Choice Expression Feeling Group People Religious Sanity Strong Togetherness
The cat is classic whilst the dog is Gothic – nowhere in the animal world can we discover such really Hellenic perfection of form, with anatomy adapted to function, as in the felidae.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Animal Cat Classic Dog Hell World
The sole ultimate factor in human decisions is physical force. This we must learn, however repugnant the idea may seem, if we are to protect ourselves and our institutions. Reliance on anything else is fallacious and ruinous.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Decision Factor Force Human Ideas Institution Ourselves Protection Ultimate
That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Aristotle Establishment Poetry Principle Pronounce
Horror and the unknown or the strange are always closely connected so that it is hard to create a convincing picture of shattered natural law or cosmic alienage or ‘outsideness’ without laying stress on the emotion of fear.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Connection Emotion Fear Horror Lay Natural Unknown
All of my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Cosmos Emotion Fundamental
From my experience, I cannot doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and uncorporeal life of far different nature from the life we know; and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after waking.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Conscious Doubt Experience Life Man Memories Wake Up
One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Effect Important Vocabulary
We should perceive that man’s period of historical existence, a period so short that his physical constitution has not been altered in the slightest degree, is insufficient to allow of any considerable mental change.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Change Condition History Man Mental Physical
In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Achievement Atmosphere Care Myself Place Story Weird Writing
We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Animal Black Magic Darkness Night
But are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false?
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Dreams Fake Poet Travel
Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Mindset Normal Religious Strict
Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Creation Deep Fear Illusion Nature Ourselves Strong
In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence, I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Appearance Atheist Rational Theory
Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Childhood Fear Happiness Memories Sadness

Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood.

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Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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